National Collegiate Athletic Association

NCAA News Archive - 2005

Geneseo State survived a one-two-three punch from defending champion Williams to walk away from the Division III Women's Cross Country Championships November 19 with its first team title in any sport.

Williams placed Caroline Cretti -- the top returning finisher from last year's championships -- and two other runners among the top 10 scorers, but Geneseo State freshman Liz Montgomery finished eight seconds ahead of Cretti in individual competition and was joined among the top 30 scorers by four teammates as the Knights claimed a 19-point victory.

With the win, Geneseo State snapped a streak of five straight victories by teams from the New England Small College Athletic Conference that included Middlebury's titles in 2000, 2001 and 2003 and Williams' victories in 2002 and last year.

The Knights also brought home a trophy to a school that previously came close but ended up a little short with semifinal losses in women's soccer in 1994 and in men's soccer last year.

"We're thrilled," Geneseo State coach Mike Woods said. "This is our college's first team championship ever. The girls have run together and worked together as a team so hard. There are a lot of stories here. Liz made a huge impact, and we knew we were getting a good girl, but Shannon Griggs was hurt two years and was never able to realize her potential, and Christiana Martin was overseas for a year."

Griggs, a junior, finished 16th among scoring runners as the team's third runner, and freshman Martin's 30th-place finish among scorers as the Knights' fifth runner proved to be more than enough to give Geneseo State the victory with 88 points.

Two seniors rounded out scoring for the Knights at the championships hosted by Ohio Wesleyan at Dornoch Golf Club, with Marta Scott placing 12th among scoring runners and Renne Catalano placing 28th.

But it was Montgomery who gave Geneseo State the extra boost toward the victory platform after the Knights' 13th-place finish last year in the national race.

"This is unreal," she said. "We've been dreaming of this all season and it happened for us. It was a total team effort, and all of those people (in the stands) were part of the team. Our team motto is 'Believe' and I think we all really believed we could do it."

Williams' Cretti, the only returning runner who finished in the top 10 individually last year, ended up sixth overall in her last attempt at an individual cross country title. She also posted top-10 finishes in 2002 and 2004 (after missing the 2003 meet with an injury).

Harren and Rudd ran side by side through the first two-thirds of the race before Harren began pulling away to cross the finish line with a time of 21 minutes, 51.9 seconds. Rudd joined Harren as the only runners to finish under 22 minutes.